start here

The Daily IKN email digest, get all daily posts sent to you next day (& no ads)

4/25/15

Back in December 2013 IKN ran this post, entitled "How to get a "social licence" in Peru" which has been getting a whole bunch of new visitors this week. It covered the fake community approval process that Southern Copper (SCCO) ran on the people of Islay and the country in general in conjunction with the government of Peru. It included this as one of the segments:

"...Peru's State news agencygets to trumpet the whole process, everybody happy, merry navidad and a prosperous año nuevo for all, right? And later down the line, when SCCO gets its EIA permit (because that's a given now) everybody will swear blind that the locals approved of the mine plan back in 2013. They'll also scratch their heads and wonder just why they're all suddenly protesting against the development, blocking roads, causing mayhem etc when SCCO tries to start the build-out."

Bottom line: One we got right at this humble corner of cyberspace.. Those who are wondering why the whole Tia Maria community situation keeps spinning out of control would do well to read the whole thing.

Honourable mention also goes to "Shooting geologists in Peru" which came out eight days ago (Friday before yesterday) so is really not this week, but has been hit on regularly all this week. That's something I see when a story isn't picked up on by real media and people Google in trying to find out something, instead of having a serious reporter's work to read.

4/24/15

Here'sthe link to the Reuters report on what Peru's Minister of Energy and Mining, Rosa María Ortiz, said to press today about Southern Copper (SCCO) and its Tia Maria project, and here's a segment:

(Reuters) - Peru's energy and mines minister said on Friday that the government could ask Southern Copper Corp to make additional changes to its $1.4 billion Tia Maria project after protests by farmers turned deadly this week.

Rosa Maria Ortiz said the government was focused on negotiations with the project's opponents, who fear it will pollute surrounding agricultural valleys in the southern region of Arequipa.

One protester died from a bullet wound during clashes with police on Wednesday as a month-long protest spread in the region.

The government could ask for more modifications to the project's environmental impact study if it felt it was necessary, Ortiz said.

"Every environmental impact study is improveable," Ortiz said at a press conference with foreign media.

Let us be clear about this: SCCO has a 100% approved and permitted Environment Impact Study and according to the letter of the law, it doesn't have to submit to any "additional changes", "modifications" or any other "improveables" if it doesn't want to. In other words, Peru's Minister of Mining is talking about rescinding the EIA. That's what she said today, no more no less, all the rest is funny wordgames and diplo-talk.

PS: A pity the reporters present at that presser didn't realize what she meant, they might have then asked the right follow-up question.

It was between this one and the Claudio Abbado version, which is more sedate and...well, mournful.

But the von Karajan is the one, nobody did Mozart like HvK. His mastery of the choir and preference tempo allows the piece to retain its main message, but brings an uplifting sentiment as well. And the Vienna Philharmonic knows its reputation is on the line every time they run a Mozart piece, they are perfection itself. And the Lacrimosa (23:47) got me doing just that last night.

Mortality is a tough moment, but it's also something that ultimately should be celebrated.

With the ticket price at 10c, spec players who accumulated at 4c and 5c this year have a decent little win. It's not one I've gone for recently, but the idea of collecting cheapo land assets is one of the main thrusts of The IKN Weekly strategy for 2015. Yamana wants the land, other bigboys will want theirs, at some point the market will notice the trend that's starting and won't allow the Tier 1 and 2 PM producers to get these things so cheaply. Just sayin'.

UPDATE Friday afternoon. Pleasant to see how much inspiration Gwen Preston gets from this humble corner of cyberspace.

And if you like those photosets of towns buried under ash, just check the interwebs and see what's happening in Bariloche Argentina. This is Calbuco's first eruption since 1972. For context, 43 years between episodes in geological time is like waiting 10 minutes for your morning transport to work instead of 5 minutes.

4/23/15

Amazingly, stunningly, crazily, it seems as though the chief of police who insisted yesterday evening that the 62 year old local farmer who died during the confrontation between locals and police officers because he tripped, fell, broke his leg and the broken bone punctured his artery was making shit up!(here's the quote from yesterday, "Victoriano Huayna did not suffer bullet or pellet impacts. According to the police chief, the victim fractured his leg and the bone cut through an artery") You'd never believe that story wasn't true now, would you?

In fact, according to the official autopsy today, Victoriano Huayna Nina died from a bullet wound to the upper right leg that blew out his artery and saw him die from the combination of shock and massive loss of blood: In short, he was shot and then bled to death. Pleasant.

Southern Copper (SCCO) must be happy now: A 62 year old farmer who had lived in the Tambo Valley all his life and done nothing more sinister in six decades than tend his fields (or lately protect them) must be one of those "mining terrorists" the company keeps talking about, so now they and the whole of Peru have one less of those dangerous and life-threatening "terrorists" to worry about. Shot to death by a police force that swore blind it was not carrying firearms while controlling the crowds yesterday and headed up by a now confirmed liar.

The point is this: We all make mistakes, all of us, errare humanum est and all that jazz. I'm a fool, you're a fool, he's a fool and she's a fool over and over again. However, not all of us put ourselves into the position where your errors cost a lot of people a lot of money, which is why of course successful businesspeople who make it to CEO level earn and deserve rich salaries. When it comes to the errors of judgment made by streaming companies they are by no means confined to Sandstorm (SSL.to) (SAND) asnoted in the post earlier this morning either, so by way of example...

Pierre Lassonde over at Franco Nevada (FNV) seems to have a weakness for the Cordillera del Condor in North Peru/East Ecuador. First he sponsored the lamentable and now defunct Dorato (ex-DRI.v), now he's getting hot and sticky over Odin and Lundin Gold. Of the three I'd give LUG a chance of becoming a winner, but no way do I buy at its current price. For another, his pop at diamond riches via Olivut turned into a moneypit of nasty. But the thing with Lassonde is that his high-risk punts may not turn out so well sometimes but he gets the big decisions right. You can tell by the FNV share price and market cap growth. The guy makes mistakes, he also makes a holy crapload of money for his backers and himself.

Moving on, let's talk about the way Silver Wheaton (SLW) has decided to sponsor the geological anomaly owned by Sandspring (SSP.v), which just today got its deal adjusted to give SSP more time and a bit more of SLW's money to play with. The thing here is that SLW started as a brilliant business plan and is a rock solid company, it can afford to throw a few risk dollars at a project or three these days and the amount of cash it has exposed to SSP isn 't much more than a rounding error.

However, that famous Seneca phrase "Errare humanum est" has a second part to it, "Sed in errare perseverare diabolicum" and that's the problem with Nolan Watson. If you make a few small errors, so be it. If you make a big one well that's not good as a CEO, but one in a singular can be forgiven if subsequent deals make it into the win column. But the way in which the SAND investments in Colossus Minerals, Luna Gold, Metanor and True Gold have turned out are ample evidence of serious and repeated strategic stupidity at the highest level at Sandstorm and when you're running a U$414m market cap these are major corporate damage mistakes too, not the SLW rounding errors on (I suppose) understandable higher-risk dicerolls. Ask yourself if you're going to trust Watson's judgment and the chances of success in the next deal he decides to make; trust him to the extent of putting your own money into his hands?

And one final thing: I'm 100% sure that Pierre Lassonde doesn't care a jot when this pissant blog (or anywhere else, often far less pissant) points the finger at his dealmaking errors. Perhaps, just perhaps, that attitude to criticism is one of the reasons why he's become so successful. As my Eng.Lit professor would say, "Discuss".

Mining investor who was chairman of Uranium One when an arm of the Russian government, Rosatom, acquired it.

Paul Reynolds

$1 million to $5 million

Adviser on 2007 UrAsia-Uranium One merger. Later helped raise $260 million for the company.

Frank Holmes

$250,000 to $500,000

Chief Executive of U.S. Global Investors Inc., which held $4.7 million in Uranium One shares in the first quarter of 2011.

Neil Woodyer

$50,000 to $100,000

Adviser to Uranium One. Founded Endeavour Mining with Mr. Giustra.

GMP Securities Ltd.

Donating portion of profits

Worked on debt issue that raised $260 million for Uranium One.

...well riddle me ree, check out those names. Telfer? Name rings a bell from somewhere...some gold mining company head, perchance? Reynolds? Something to do with mining brokerages, perhaps? And GMP, don't just do something in the...ah yeah they do. Woodyer? Not the same Endeavour Financial Woodyer that hangs with Giustra and Serafino Iacono all night long? And is that Frank Holmes the same Frank Holmes that bet a whole tonne of US Global (aka other people's money) on Frank Giustra's Gran Colombia Gold (GCM.to) vehicle in Colombia and still owns 12% of the company and just bailed them out by "lending" Giustra's pal Serafino Iacono's failing miner another $2m in cash?

YesterdayIKN asked,"Why are authorities so keen on charging this Flash Crash guy?" because the rap sheet looked dumb as a bag of nails from the very start. Fortunately there are smarter people in this wonderful blogo-world than your two-dimensionally-brained humble scribe, people who have the insight to get to the bottom of the story quickly.

"They have arrested a kid who is spoofing the market with a few thousand e-mini contracts and hence taken money from the front-running computers whose real goal is to rip you (real investors) off. They have made the world safe for the conventional high-frequency traders at a real cost to the investing public."

In our modern thrusting times, lead (Pb) has become a bit of an ugly sister in the base metals fashion world. Copper's cool, zinc gets talked up, nickel's shiny, alu gets used in everything, but poor old plumbum is heavy and poisonous and those new fangled batteries don't even need it any more. However, against many odds (if not all) the price has been making a bit of a comeback in the last few weeks:

The heavy metal was spiking down under 80c/lb as late as PDAC time, we're now back at 92c. Lead not dead.

Mr. Kaplan decides that paying for one office worth of G&A is smarter than paying for two, which in fact makes sense. Sunward's been a disaster and Rick Van Alphabet's getting bored with the people who won't build the road, so here we are. NR here, how it starts here:

VANCOUVER , April 23, 2015 /CNW/ - NovaCopper Inc. (TSX, NYSE-MKT: NCQ) ("NovaCopper") and Sunward Resources Ltd. (TSX: SWD; OTCQX: SNWRF) ("Sunward") are pleased to announce that they have entered into a definitive arrangement agreement (the "Arrangement Agreement") pursuant to which NovaCopper has agreed to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Sunward by way of a court approved plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement").

The combination of NovaCopper and Sunward will create a leading exploration and development company with a strong balance sheet of approximately US$23 million in cash for the advancement of the Arctic and Bornite deposits located in the Ambler mining district of Alaska , USA. The company plans to advance the Arctic deposit towards feasibility with a US$8-10 million field program this summer. Meanwhile, plans are underway to maximize shareholder value at the Titiribi exploration asset in Colombia. Sunward has focused on community engagement at its Titiribi project and with its talented and experienced Colombian management team, has built a strong reputation with local communities.

Under the terms of the Arrangement, Sunward shareholders will receive 0.3 (the "Exchange Ratio") of a NovaCopper common share ("NovaCopper Share") for each Sunward common share ("Sunward Share") held. The Exchange Ratio represents the equivalent of US$0.1841 per Sunward Share based on yada yada numbers stuff and VWAP and all sorts of wonderful business-speak continues here

4/22/15

Victoriano Huayna Nina, 61, became the first mortality of the strike action in the Tambo Valley, protesting against the Tia Maria mine project.

The victim was injured during the confrontations this afternoon between farmers in the valley and police officers in the area around the Pampa Blanca bridge in the Cocachacra district

The injured man was taken to the Manuel Torres Muñoz hospital in Mollendo, where he arrived in a critical state, where he later died. He body was taken to the hospital morgue.

The head of the Islay Health Service, Walter Vera, confirmed the time of death at around 5:40pm. The victim died of wounds to the right leg.

Because a 61 year old farmer is a terrorist, or something. Right SCCO? And for what it's worth, since posting earlier about two reported injuries, a whole bunch of new reports about injured people and arrests have come in, including the arrest of the woman mayoress of a local town during on of the protests. Because democratically elected lady mayors are mining terrorists, too.

UPDATE: Señor Huayna Nina died from shotgun pellet injuries, apparently. And new reports put his age at 62.

UPDATE 3: According to the police general in charge of the regional police force (quote unquote), "...Victoriano Huayna did not suffer bullet or pellet impacts. According to the police chief, the victim fractured his leg and the bone cut through an artery." Which may be true. If so we can add it to the impressive number of unlucky accidents protesters tend to have around Peruvian police officers.

Today and for the first time, Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mining has made public the review process it went through in 2014 that gave the Southern Copper (SCCO) Tia Maria project the environmental green light. You canfind it on this link here and the interesting bit is the green link which goes to the 2014 EIA document PDF. At a guess, less than a dozen of you marvellous and wonderful IKN readers will be interested in that link. That's enough to stick it here, so join me in a little bedtime reading material.

As for the regionwide strike action and protest today, it was mostly peaceful but this afternoon we've had reports of a skirmish between anti-mine protesters and police units near the town of Cocachacra in the Tambo Valley. Also one further up the main Panamericana Highway. Together, those have accounted for two arrests and two injuries.

UPDATE: From the document: This is wonderful, a case example of how an Environmental Permit is awarded by a government bureau:

If you read Spanish you'll need no prompting, but basically: "We weren't sure whether to award the permit because we'd heard things weren't great between SCCO and the locals, even though they'd already done some workshops and things. So we asked SCCO to do some more. So SCCO did some workshops and now everyone in the area knows what's going on. Therefore this problem is solved. No problems."

A nice thinkpiece from Glenn Chan today, entitled"Figuring out the skill of mining CEOs". There's plenty of meat on this bone so go over and have a read for yourself. I'm not 100% on board with some of the argument, but here's one bit I agreed with:

"Some CEOs like Nolan Watson do not have formal (or informal) training in mine exploration or mine engineering. Despite the lack of mining expertise, they do not hire mining professionals onto their staff. These are the people who make really dumb investments. So far, every single Nolan Watson investment in Sandstorm Metals and Energy has turned out to be a disaster. Likewise, institutional investors generally have no idea what they’re doing when it comes to valuing mining assets. They are also the fish at the poker table. Usually these people are easy to spot because it is easy to get biographical information on the people involved (e.g. what did these people study in university, did they ever work as an explorationist or mine engineer, etc.)."

This was part of IKN310, out last Sunday evening. It gets an airing here on the open blog because several people have written in inquiring about Argentina political thoughts this week. It's easier this way.

Argentina 2015 is going to be one special political showtime.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Argentina: Daniel Scioli is now favourite for next President

To this point, IKN and your author
has had Daniel Scioli as its tentative choice as the 2015 winner in Argentina
politics, first in the PASO (version of primaries) vote in August and then in
the big vote in October to decide who becomes the next President of Argentina. Today
that changes, he's now clear favourite.

"It's a difficult call this early in the process, but
I'm contractually obliged to make a call on the Argentina
presidential election so the forecast is for Daniel Scioli to be the next
President of Argentina."

Then a couple of weeks ago in the
Regional Risk update of IKN308 it was:

"...it's still too early to call anything with great
confidence but things stand so far, my tentative selection of Daniel Scioli for
the win has firmed up and looks a little more likely."

But a week is a long time in
politics and since then we've had two developments; Firstly, the start of the
akin to primaries process (it's very complicated) has begun in some of the
provinces of Argentina (last
week Salta, today Mendoza
and Santa Fe) and initial results have shown decent support in both relative
and absolute terms for the FpV candidates. That's the "Frente Para La Victoria"
party of both current President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and candidate
Daniel Scioli, often known as the Kirchnerist party or simply the "K"
party.

So early results in PASO votes have been
encouraging for Scioli. Then this morning we have the result of the latest
survey conducted by poll people Poliarquia for
La Nacion (12)
and here's the numbers from that. with
notes below:

1) It was a phone survey of 1,000
people, conducted between April 3rd and April 10th. It covered 40 different
representative zones of Argentina
and is given a margin of error of +/-3.2%. For what it's worth, Poliarquia is
one of the more reliable pollsters in the country and you can tell because
they're regularly accused of being pro-govt by anti-govt people and anti-govt
by pro-govt people, depending on the poll results on varying subjects they come
out with over the course of time.

2) In Poliarquia's previous survey
a little less than a month ago (13) Poliarquia
scored Scioli at 31%, Macri 25% and Massa
21%.

3) In March, the news was the
fading of the frontrunner in 2013 and 2014, Sergio Massa (Frente Renovador
party). The latest survey continues to indicate
his wilting.

4) Mauricio Macri's (PRO party)
share is up from 25% and it's clear he's now the main opposition to an eventual
Scioli win and the continuation of the current government in Argentina.

5) Daniel Scioli (FpV party, aka
Kirchnerist) is now the clear leader and consolidating. He and Macri and now
pulling away from Massa
and while here, let's note that although I've added the numbers for two of the
other players at htis point there are only three logical possibles for
President, the rest is just noise.

6) In the deeper interior party details
of the FpV there's more good news for Daniel Scioli. His nearest rival in the
FpV ranks for the PASO "primary" vote in August is Florencio
Randazzo, and for that August vote Scioli is on 24.5% with Randazzo
back on 12.5%. That's a big gap and virtually guarantees his official
nomination now (sidebar: Randazzo may now
manoeuver for a leading role within a Scioli admin, or perhaps take the Vice
President candidacy on the Scioli ticket; for deeper political watchers it's
going to be very interesting to watch Radazzo's moves in the next few weeks).

7) Also good for Scioli, in the
politically key Greater Buenos Aires region (not to be confused with the separate and relatively small city centre Buenos Aires zone) Scioli is clear frontrunner on 36%,
with Massa 22%
and Macri 21%. There's an old adage in Argentina politics that you cannot
win the presidency without winning Gran
BsAs.

8) Finally, it's long been assumed
(and confirmed by polls) that if the
Presidential vote gives no clear winner on October 25th, a run-off between
Daniel Scioli and Sergio Massa
would be tough to call but a run-off between Daniel Scioli and Mauricio Macri
clearly favours Scioli. As that latter is now the most likely scenario, even
the run-off is beginning to suit Scioli.

Bottom
line:
I'm calling the frontrunner and the most likely challenger, I'm also calling
the favourite but please be clear that I'm not calling the winner. It's still
not over yet, not by a long haul,but
we can now say out loud that Daniel Scioli is favourite to win in October (with
a run-off likely in November) and become the next President of Argentina.
It's also worth noting that to this point the election campaign has been rather
non-controversial and little scandal noise has come so far, which is
particularly weird for Argentine politics. It remains to be seen whether the
relatively clean campaign continues though it's probably fair to say that the
longer things remain "civilized" the more it favours the two
frontrunners. As for an eventual Scioli win, ostensibly this would mean a
continuation of the current Cristina government and policies as they're from
the same but it's also likely that Scioli would be more moderate than CFK, in
the mid to long term at least. We can take a closer look at the dynamics of
that if the scenario continues to indicate
Scioli as dauphin in the months
to come.

Mauricio Macri is now the obvious
challenger, which is a change from the beginning of the year when I wrote (11),
"Main opponent is Massa, in with a squeak is Macri, outsider
Randazzo, the rest are just noise" at the end of December. Son of a
very rich and successful businessman as well as being current Mayor of Buenos
Aires city and president of Boca Juniors football club, Macri comes from as
classic a right wing neoliberal political standpoint as you could imagine. If
he became President, it would mark a big shift in Argentine politics to the
type of "normal" economic policies we see in most industrialized and emerging market growth
countries. It would also be a move away from the shadow of Juan Peron (although Macri is bound to swear blind his
allegiance to Peron in the months to come). You can expect his candidacy to
gain strong support from political and media figures outside of Argentina
looking in.

If the USD is "doing something" then you need to pay attention. If it isn't, there's that cool book to catch up on or garden or maybe it's time I got round to painting that ceiling or how about a coffee downtown or (etc).

This will of course only work right up to the moment that it doesn't. But for the time being it works, so unless you're one of those into picking up nickels in front of a steamroller we are not living in interesting times.

Why are authorities so keen on charging this Flash Crash guy? The rap sheet is so shaky that even the dullards at Bloomie have blown a dozen holes into it in under 24 hours.

Why is Tim Warman, independent director at Continental Gold (CNL.to), so keen on exercising a whole bunch of his$1.50 options and dumping them at less than 50c profit? I mean, it's notable that 1) he's a professional geologist and 2) he's not exactly short of a bob or two.

Why is Daniel Ameduri's pump job on First Mining Finance (FF.v) failing so badly? Is it true that he's about to get his $7,000/month spigot turned off for not being able to move the stock in the way he promised?

Why did Eurasian (EMX.v) (EMXX) dump hard yesterday afternoon? We know a million papers got lumped onto an inexistent bid and we know that the company has no new news coming up, because they told us. If Dundee steps up and buys this dip, I wouldn't be surprised.

And why is Bobby Genovese so pissed at IKN? He shouldn't be, because he's previously told your humble scribe that nothing written here ever bothers him. Why the change in mood, Bobby?

4/21/15

Tomorrow Wednesday, the Arequipa region of South Peru sees a regionwide strike against the Tia Maria project of Southern Copper (SCCO). The difference this time is that the protests are now spreading, it's not just the Tambo Valley on the coast. Schools all over will be shut, transport stopped, a massed protest marches in the centre of Arequipa and supposedly some 5,000 police officers on hand in Big City to control things*.

IKN wonders whether Carlos Aranda, Technical Services Manager at Southern Copper (SCCO), will keep on with his story about the protests coming from just 6% of the 52,000 people who live in the Tambo Valley after tomorrow.

*Hopefully that stays at control things and doesn't turn into "control things".

4/20/15

For some reason the small letters "YTEL" are superimposed in the middle of the video. Don't let that put you off, this is magnificent.

I'll leave it to Keith Richards: "You say I'm a guitar legend. You have no idea. There are only two or three guitarists who can be considered legends. And above all is Paco de Lucía."UPDATE: The second movement, in which de Lucía breaks your heart and then mends it again, starts at 5:46.

When it comes to silver I do try, I really do. I even own some bullion. But the whole wingnut aspect to the silver market and the myopic permabull true believers that overpopulate the magical gun-totin' freedom defending saviour's world of silver, it's really too much. All too often I find myself falling back to the default position of mocking the idiots because, quite frankly, they deserve little else (except perhaps some pity, which you won't find on these pages).

Which is why articles like this one out of Screwtape Files,"Why Does The Price of Silver Matter?"should be read by as many people as possible because it's about silver as an investment (perhaps speculative is better) vehicle and the connection between silver and governments by a smart, intelligent, experienced and reasonable market player who isn't frothing into hyperbole, but does get to make a sensible point. Go read it too.

If you mining trading investing and punting guys in Canada would like to know what your junior mining news releases would look like if the companies didn't have the OSC, BCSC etc to answer to, then read on:

BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL--(April 20, 2015) - Brazil Minerals, Inc. (OTC: BMIX) (the
"Company" or "BMIX") announced today that it had been featured in TCR, a well-regarded
mining newsletter, with a price target for its common stock approximately eight times greater
than the last closing price. TCR specializes in smaller capitalization companies in the minerals
space, and is read by influential industry members. The Company does not have any affiliation
with TCR, and was unaware that it would be featured.

Thom Calandra, the publisher of TCR, publicly disclosed on Friday, April 17, that he had bought
an initial small position in the common stock of BMIX through open market trades. He has no
affiliation of any type with the Company but had the opportunity to meet with BMIX’s CEO in
2013 and 2014. Mr. Calandra has decades of investment experience in mining companies.

The current management of the Company, in place since December 2012, has never sold a single
share of their BMIX stock. The Company's CEO, Head of Brazilian Operations, Chief Mining
Officer, and General Counsel, all receive partial compensation in the form of restricted BMIX
stock in lieu of cash payments.

Absolutely adorable. A couple of points to make:

1) "...a price target for its common stock approximately eight times greater than the last closing price" refers to the fact that BMIX shares closed Friday at 0.0026 and Thom Calandra has slapped a 2c target price on this paper.

2) It's absolutely true that, "Mr. Calandra has decades of investment experience in mining companies". Take for example this link to an SEC litigation filingas evidence. It starts like this:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today brought and settled civil fraud charges against Thom Calandra, a former columnist for the Internet website CBS MarketWatch.com. The Commission alleges that Calandra profited by secretly selling stocks shortly after his investment newsletter's positive recommendations of the stocks caused their prices to rise. In settling the matter, Calandra, who lives in Sausalito, California, will pay over $540,000 in disgorgement and penalties.

3) Nice to see Roger Noriega, ex-Assistant US Secretary of State in the George Bush administration, on the board of directors. And Paul Durand, ex-Ambassador for Canada to a couple of LatAm countries who did so well in the Infinito Gold negotiations with Costa Rica.

Company officials were advised by the authors of the report that a computational error was discovered in the formula pertaining to one section of the report. The error resulted in a portion of the projected revenue not being accounted for in early years of the project, which, together with consequent adjustments to estimates for tax liabilities, resulted in an adjustment to the NPV and IRR results. After correction for this calculation, the Company reports the following amendments to the summary provided on April 13:

Pre-tax NPV of US$ 875 million with an IRR of 16.6% (previously reported as US$ 821 million with an IRR of 15.7%)

After-tax NPV of US$ 606 million with an IRR of 14.6% (previously reported as US$ 562 million with an IRR of 13.9%)

Bobby Genovese's latest scam's been fiddling its books. Here's the originally filed balance sheet for Jemi Fibre (JFI.v) for the quarter ended October 2014:

And here's the amended filing for the same quarter that was re-filed at SEDAR last Friday:

Oh we love this one, Bobby.

And how, you ask, did the re-filed balance sheet manage to move from negative to positive equity? Simple, all it did was to assign a new value to its newly purchased assets, namely WoodEx Industries, Kootenay Wood Preservers (KWP), and Prairie Holdings Inc (PHI). And to make the transaction nice and clear, we're going to do it by bullet point:

When JFI.v bought WoodEx, KWP and PHI it paid the vendors in shares of JFI.v

It paid 12m shares for the three properties, to be exact.

Those shares were valued at $2.25m

It just so happens that two of the directors of JFI.v are Mike Jenks and Georgina Martin, who also happen to be 50% owners of the three properties sold to JFI.v (WoodEx, KWP, PHI)

The transaction happened on June 5th 2014

Then suddenly, just four and a half months later, in a re-filing of its company quarterly financials, the three properties bought with $2.25m worth of shares have boosted JFI's asset value by over $14m.

And if you're up for some longform read this byGore Vidal, The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh. Written as a polemic (of course), parts of it can and should be taken with the normal Vidal pinch of salt but there's plenty to consider in retrospect, too. Not least because it was written around the time of McVeigh's execution in early 2001 and was the front page story of the September 2001 edition of Vanity Fair. And then everything changed.

Nothing like a common enemy to gird a country and prevent internal wars from breaking out, is there?

Total Pageviews

The information and opinions contained within this site reflect the personal views of Inca Kola News and therefore all material within should not be construed as accurate or reliable or be utilized as advice for investment or business purposes. Independent due diligence and discussions with ones own investment and business advisors is strongly recommended. Accordingly, nothing on this site should be construed as offering a guarantee of the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein, as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security or as an endorsement of any product or service. All opinions and estimates included on this site are subject to change without notice. All content may be reproduced under fair use doctrine providing proper credit and a return link is made to this site.